Who is the CEO of Portent? aka: Yep, I'm back

It’s me, Ian! I’m back as CEO of Portent after six months as Chairman and Principal Consultant. I’m damned happy about it, too. Here’s why:

We hit our goals. Steve came on board to get our business house in order. Frankly, I suck at that. Steve is great at it. He got it done. At that point, he could see Portent needed me back in the job, doing what I love.

The bear left. I’ve said that running an agency is like wrestling with a s–t covered bear. I got some time to wash the stink off. After 19 years, I needed that. In another 19, I’ll need it again.

Job reboot. A founder CEO can really suffer from job creep. I was CEO, client troubleshooter, head SEO, head writer, head strategist, executive team… It was just bad. With time away I was able to ‘reboot.’ It was like moving to a new town as a teenager. I left all of the bad habits behind. I’m ready to create new ones!

A fantastic leadership team. Portent’s strong leadership team has gotten even better. I can absolutely rely on them. No more job creep for me.

Helping the entire team focus on the same ‘Portent-ness’ that’s gotten us this far.

This seems to be the right job description: My second tenure as CEO has so far been flawless. 2-3 weeks without a world-crushing blunder, or making someone cry, or curling up under my desk in a ball. Nice!

Seriously, I’m excited. We’ve got a lot of great stuff going on. I’m back in the corner office, being deliberate about defining my job.

Ian Lurie is CEO and founder of Portent and the EVP of Marketing Services at Clearlink. He's been a digital marketer since the days of AOL and Compuserve (25 years, if you're counting). He's recorded training for Lynda.com, writes regularly for the Portent Blog and has been published on AllThingsD, Smashing Magazine, and TechCrunch. Ian speaks at conferences around the world, including SearchLove, MozCon, Seattle Interactive Conference and ad:Tech. He has published several books about business and marketing: One Trick Ponies Get Shot, available on Kindle, The Web Marketing All-In-One Desk Reference for Dummies, and Conversation Marketing. Follow him on Twitter at portentint, and on LinkedIn at LinkedIn.com/in/ianlurie.